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The Consortium of European project Optician2020 has successfully finished the activities to demonstrate, assess the benefits and validate the sustainability of a new business model for the production and delivery of personalised spectacles adapted to the morphology of each user based on the use of 3D printing technologies and local manufacturing.

The project, coordinated by Eurecat Technology Centre has brought the Industry 4.0 concept into the optical industry, making real the 2020 ophthalmic industry paradigm, consisting of the manufacture at local mini-factories of completely personalized spectacles, based on refractive prescription, customers’ anatomical data and their aesthetical preferences. The Optician2020 project “combines advanced manufacturing technologies with a network of mini production centres, personalized design, knowledge engineering, sustainable production technology, anthropometry and ergonomics to demonstrate that the manufacture of personalized spectacles can be a local, profitable business while remain sustainable and in line with the latest fashion,” explains project coordinator, Joan Guasch.

This novel paradigm has been demonstrated by means of two mini-factory networks located in Southern Europe and Central Europe. Demonstration started in November 2015 and finished last July. During a period of 7 months, the two mini-factory clusters have generated 455 personalised spectacles that have fitted 240 real users from an optic shop in Portugal and 215 from an optic shop in Switzerland. Those real users have experienced the new purchase experience and the benefits of the personalised spectacles.

Demonstration has validated the sustainability of this novel business model in terms of personalisation flexibility, fast delivery and environmental friendly productions, bringing out important benefits for both the industrial sector and consumers.

By the use of an advanced scanner device, a catalogue of personalisable spectacles allowing a huge amount of combinations, and a user friendly co-design environment, spectacles were designed according to the user’s dimensional facial needs and their aesthetical preferences, providing a breakthrough in the frame and lens fitting accuracy, as reported by several users and opticians, with a success rate in accepting progressive lenses of more than 99%.

The demonstration has also proven that the mini-factories can deliver the personalised spectacles in a competitive time frame (less than 25 days) and foresees delivery times of less than 15 days, reducing the time-to-market of new personalised spectacles to 75% when compared to stock conventional frames.

In addition, the demonstration has shown that the manufacturing of personalized products by means of 3D printing technologies and local manufacturing can reduce the eco-cost up to a significant 50-62% in the best case when compared to traditional processes.

Feedback collected from real users corroborate that Optician 2020 has created a more appealing shopping experience, where the final product perfect fits the consumer face, achieving high levels of satisfaction, quality perception and comfort perception and solving main problems when buying convectional spectacles such as frame adjusting, annoying nose pads or pressure on ears . “Optician 2020 spectacles better suits me” and “Optician 2020 lens provide a better comfort” are common statements heard from customers during demonstration.

All these validation results underpin current industrial paradigm change towards environmental friendly, agile and point-of-need manufacturing and opens the pave the way for the application of the Optician 2020 proposed model for personalised products supply to other consumer products such as jewellery, watches, etc.

Co-financed by the European Commission under the “Factories of the Future, Public Private Partnership” initiative as part of the 7th Framework Programme, Optician2020 has 10 members from 6 European countries. The project balances active participation from large companies such as Indo Optical, Satisloh Photonics and Melotte NV; small and medium sizes companies like Knowledge Integration, Optica Pita, Alcom Optika, Lens World and 3TRPD Limited, together with research and technology centres such as the Valencia Institute of Biomechanics and Eurecat.

The final review of the Optician 2020 project will take place on the next November, 17th. The meeting will be hosted by Eurecat in their premises on Cerdanyola with the organization support of INDO.

The Optician 2020 Consortium will present the Optician 2020 ophthalmic industry paradigm for delivering personalised spectacles, the key enabling technologies developed and deployed to make it real, the industrial scalability studies conducted, the validation results obtained after demonstrating the feasibility of this new paradigm and business models based on close-to-optician mini-factories on two initial cluster of networked mini-factories, as well as all the dissemination and communication activities performed and the path to exploitation designed for reaching the market. Furthermore, it is planned a visit to INDO premises at Sant Cugat del Vallès for a live demonstration.

In the Optician 2020 pitch Eurecat, as a project coordinator, presented to potential business and innovation partners the project objectives and expected impacts, the main challenges addressed, its demonstration results, as well as the market and opportunity for the Optician 2020’s business model.

Optician 2020 demonstration activities carried out to assess the benefits of the new mini-factories based business model for the production and delivery of personalised spectacles have successfully finished this July.

The Optician 2020 novel paradigm has been demonstrated by means of two mini-factory networks close to the sell point, i.e. the optician. A first mini-factory cluster was set up in Southern Europe, with an optician in Portugal. Once this cluster was operating, a second Central-European cluster, with an optician in Switzerland, was added, demonstrating the potential for effective up-scaling the concept and the management platform performance for intelligent production planning and control.

The demonstrator in Southern Europe started in November 2015 whereas the demonstrator in Central Europe started a few months later, in February 2016. Since then, both demonstrators have been running until the end of July 2016. During a period of 7 months, the 2 clusters have generated 455 personalised spectacles that have fitted 240 users from the optic shop in Portugal and 215 from the second optic shop in Switzerland.

During the demonstration, the on-demand production chain started and finished at the optician shop. Opticians selected proper volunteers amongst their customers. Personalisation design was enabled by the scanning of the face-head anatomy and by a co-design environment allowing the user to select frame and lens design, material and coatings from a large catalogue choice of spectacles, decoration and lenses. All this data was automatically processed and ingested to an ICT platform, in charge of the creation and management of manufacturing orders.

Partners in the Consortium are now collecting all obtained results and feedback to prepare two public reports, one summarizing the benefits for the industrial sector and one focusing on the benefits from the consumer’s point of view.

Optician 2020 has been present at the In(3D)ustry event, a 3-day Premium event focused on Advanced and Additive Manufacturing, connecting top users with prominent manufacturers and service providers to share success stories and realise technological needs. Eurecat, Optician 2020 coordinator participated in the event with its own stand. Eurecat’s stand devoted a space to show and present some of the Optician 2020 spectacles produced during the demonstration stage to its visitors. Besides, the Optician 2020 project was included in the Eurecat’s designed leaflet for the occasion as a highlighted project in the area.

Optician 2020 has been presented at the Future Industry Congresslast 14th June in Barcelona. This congress, organized by Eurecat is focused on advanced, digital and connected industry and has as main topromote the adaptation of enterprises to the latest digital innovations and the fourth industrial revolution. Within its programme, the congress included the session: “INDO HORIZONS: Optician2020 – Digital manufacturing as a vehicle for Customisation”, where Juan Carlos Dürsteler, CIO of INDO, explained the Optician 2020 paradigm and present some of its results.

Bulle, Switzerland (22 March 2016). Lens World hosted the 6th meeting of Optician 2020 project. All partners met in Bulle for a 2 days meeting.

The meeting aimed at tracking the progress of the project and plan upcoming tasks.
During the meeting, partners presented an overview of results obtained of finished Work Packages and reviewed recent activities in Industrial Sustainability, as well as in Dissemination and Exploitation. A clear focus was put on the follow-up of the demonstration activities being carried out in the two mini-clusters set up by the project. Partners revised data from produced spectacles, planned future work and discuss enhancements performed and to be applied to the supply chain and related technologies that refine Optician 2020 proposal for flexible and on-demand manufacturing of customized spectacles. Lensworld also provided valuable feedback regarding real user’s acceptance of Optician 2020 spectacles.

The meeting also included a visit to Lens World, where all partners could see Lens World’s installations and enjoy a demonstration of the acquisition of user data and design process.

Optician2020 has been present at the MIDO Eyewear fair held at Milano last 27th -29th February 2016. MIDO is currently the most important professional event dedicated to eyewear at international level, with an attendance of 52,000 qualified visitors from all over the world. Optician 2020 has been presented by the hand of INDO, which dedicated a specific place in its booth to the project. In the Optician 2020 space, INDO staff could explain the objectives of the project as well as disseminate its benefits and first results. There were shown several demonstration spectacle samples and the Optician2020 video was projected showing the benefits of personalization. Visitors showed a great interest in the project and its future outcomes.

Barcelona (18th of January 2016).The Consortium of European project Optician2020 has begun activities to demonstrate the sustainability of a new model for the creation of personalized spectacles adapted to the morphology of each user, by means of 3D printing technologies and local manufacturing.

Coordinated by the Eurecat Technology Centre and promoted by the company Indo Optical, the project “anticipates the new optical industry paradigm for 2020, which will move towards the manufacture of completely personalized spectacles, based on optical prescription, the anatomical data of customers, and their aesthetical preferences, all on a local level close to sales points,” explains project coordinator, Joan Guasch. He anticipates that this progress “will mean the beginning of the concept of Connected Industry 4.0 for the optical industry.”

The Optician2020 project “combines advanced manufacturing technologies with a network of mini production centres, personalized design, knowledge engineering, sustainable production technology, anthropometry and ergonomics to demonstrate that the manufacture of personalized spectacles can be a local, profitable business while remain sustainable and in line with the latest fashion,” explains Guasch.

Additionally, Optician2020 has proven that the manufacturing of personalized products with 3D printing is more ecological than conventional manufacturing methods, given that carbon print reduction (kilos of CO2 equivalent emissions per gram) ranges between 15 to 70 percent less on average, depending on the models and materials, compared to standard processes. In order to validate the new paradigm proposed, the Consortium partners began in the past November the demonstration phase, in which they are producing personalized spectacles for more than 200 people, including real users. This comprises a procedure that will enable the evaluation of user satisfaction and of all those involved in production, and the calculation of reductions in delivery time, production costs and environmental impact. It is estimated that this will be completed by June 2016.Guasch highlights that the research carried out with Optician2020, “has proven that this model reduces cost and environmental impact compared to the current model that involves focusing manufacture in Asia, far from sales points, and completely eliminates problems related to managing and storing stocks.”

In this regard, “personalization strategies allow manufacturers and dealers to offerunique products, adapted to the needs and wishes of a specific person,” such as is the case of eyewear, which is a fashionable product that combines prescription requirements with functional and aesthetic needs,” predicts the project coordinator.

Co-financed by the European Commission under the “Factories of the Future, Public Private Partnership” initiative as part of the 7th Framework Programme, Optician2020 (Flexible and on-demand manufacturing of customized spectacles by close-to-optician production clusters) has 10 members from 6 European countries. The project balances active participation from large companies such as Indo Optical, Satisloh Photonics and Melotte NV; small and medium sizes companies like Knowledge Integration; Optica Pita; Alcom Optika; Lens World and 3TRPD Limited, together with research and technology centres such as the Valencia Institute of Biomechanics Research and Eurecat.

The Optician2020’s consortium has just released a dissemination video, focused on how the project aims to demonstrate the sustainability of a new business model for personalized eyewear, delivered through a proximity production network, which would work like local mini-factories.

The Optician2020’s first video shows that the consortium is developing new tools and procedures for personalized design and a new personalized manufacturing technologies. Furthermore, new ICT platforms tools are being developed for managing the manufacture of personalized spectacles and delivery through a network of available production sites, in accordance with the criteria regarding delivery time, costs, proximity and environmental impact.

Optician is highly focused on demonstration. Demonstration activities are being carried out to test and validate the robustness and flexibility of the network of mini-factories and the quality of the manufactured spectacles.

By the end of the project, more than 200 EU citizens will have experienced the benefit of eyewear personalization.